Tech Forum

I am the ward clerk for an English speaking unit in Germany (military ward). Our situation overseas is somewhat unique so sometimes things don't work for us as well as other units that are based in the States. In this particular instance, I have two separate (but probably related) issues that I'm hoping somebody can help me resolve.

1. I have created a calendar via the beta calendar application at beta.lds.org but can only add two editors. The two members that can be added as editors are the EQP and his wife. Nobody else shows up when I start typing people's names. Other calendar administrators (bishop, 2nd counselor in bishopric) have the same problem. Has anybody else seen this problem?

2. When I view the Beta Maps website, all of the families (to include my own family) are dimmed out (what does this mean?) except for the EQP's family. I signed in to beta maps with my wife's account (she is not an administrator) and all she sees are her own family and the family of the EQP. Her account used to be able to see all of the ward families. Leaders are asking what is going on -- they use the beta maps for home teaching, emergency preparedness, and more.

So what's going on here? What is special about the EQP that only his family that is visible to all ward members on the beta maps website? And why are he and his wife the only ones that can be added as editors to calendars? These two issues are almost certainly connected, right?

I submitted a bug report to both the beta maps and the calendar developers but haven't heard anything back. Any idea what is going on here?

psnarula wrote:So what's going on here? What is special about the EQP that only his family that is visible to all ward members on the beta maps website? And why are he and his wife the only ones that can be added as editors to calendars? These two issues are almost certainly connected, right?

This sounds just like the issue described in this post (review the posts that follow in the thread for additional information). Under EU privacy laws, members have to explicitly opt in for their information to be visible in general. But priesthood leaders can still see everyone; since you are a ward clerk, I imagine that this explains why you can see everyone, and the dimmed member records are an indication that you are seeing people that the general membership cannot see.

Alan_Brown wrote:This sounds just like the issue described in this post (review the posts that follow in the thread for additional information). Under EU privacy laws, members have to explicitly opt in for their information to be visible in general. But priesthood leaders can still see everyone; since you are a ward clerk, I imagine that this explains why you can see everyone, and the dimmed member records are an indication that you are seeing people that the general membership cannot see.

I hope you are wrong but I have to concede that this seems like a likely explanation for the beta maps. It basically cripples the app. Ugh. It does not make sense to me that this setting would also carry over to affect the beta calendars...

How do I opt in for my family?

psnarula wrote:I hope you are wrong but I have to concede that this seems like a likely explanation for the beta maps. It basically cripples the app. Ugh. It does not make sense to me that this setting would also carry over to affect the beta calendars...

How do I opt in for my family?

Okay I figured it out. Each family has to make their profiles public in the Ward Directory at http://beta.lds.org/directory. When I sign in with my account, I can see everybody in the directory. When when I sign in as my wife, I see only the EQP's family and my family. Sure enough, I can use my account to see that the EQP has a public profile whereas everybody else's profiles are private by default. This is a major change from how the current directory is implemented. Very disappointing.

Evidently a person with a private profile cannot be added as an editor to a calendar. This is going to take some getting used to...

It looks like I, as the clerk, have permission to edit private profiles and make them public. I suppose doing so without explicit permission from church members would be illegal. We may have to embark on something of a public relations campaign...

definite answer in the attachment...